


Thorns

by cr3stfallen



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Freeform, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Mildly Dubious Consent, Regret, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cr3stfallen/pseuds/cr3stfallen
Summary: A prosey little vent piece just take it
Relationships: Female Hawke/Isabela, Fenris & Female Hawke, Fenris/Female Hawke, Fenris/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Thorns

The mansion Fenris squatted in had little of note to separate it from similar structures in Hightown on outside appearances. That is, besides the thorny vines that twisted every which way, taking over the tiny corner of street by its too ornate door. Disgusting, opulent, wasteful. Just like the vapid, self-serving monsters who once inhabited this place. The vines, along with scattered corpses, cobwebs, and destroyed niceties inside desecrated the beauty, and thus were deemed acceptable additions. It brought the whole thing down to a safe level of crudity; one he didn't feel guilty inhabiting for a time. 

He hated these people, this place, to a degree that wasn't healthy in all honesty. The hatred was born of fear and thus held tightly at bay for those deserving alone, only rearing its ugly head when mages nearby and those who supported the system that destroyed Fenris spouted their nonsense justifications. But there was one person he couldn't hate. This flippant, whimsical, curvy thing, all done up with makeup on her piercing eyes whenever she called upon his services. Despite being an abomination. Despite being an utter sarcastic asshole, he couldn't deny his body's pull to their leader for very long. For years he tried, told himself time and time again it was doomed. Never to bear healthy fruit. Under all her snark, though, beat a very real heart. The heart of a mage, but this one less terrifying than the rest. 

Perhaps… 

Perhaps. Months go by. Her face haunts him more and more. And her ass. And her voice. And that smirk across her delicious red lips she only graced him with. The same red as their enemies. Why  _ her.  _ Of  _ all _ the people, why the stubborn mage, did it have to be? He wondered if she felt that same fondness, loathsome to touch with its intensity. 

"Is there no one else who has your eye? I am an escaped slave, squatting in an abandoned mansion."

"Just you."

She was a beautiful woman. No. That wasn't enough. She was a fleeting rose, starkly contrasting the dull ache of his life. Tempting. She burned brighter than the sun in his mind, just uplifting enough to put him at ease, just sarcastic and steadfast enough that he knew he wasn't a pity case. It was too much to hope for.

This was something he couldn't push down or numb out. Every time it came crashing too hard against his harbor, he retreated to that safe spot. The lonely mansion in his mind. Safeguarded both from cruelty and kindness, at least the safe comfort of numbness let him stick around another day. It pricked at him ever tighter, but perhaps it was all he deserved to let himself get overgrown with grief in such a wretched place. Another week. Another month, praying his irrational affections wouldn't betray him as they worsened. Why couldn't he leave before making a mistake? Why couldn't she be a lying bitch like the rest of them? Why couldn't she fall to temptation already and prove his fears justified? Hating her for being a magical monstrosity would be so much easier than trying to lie to himself. He was absolutely enamored with a mage after all her kind had done to him.

Hints of his truth leak out in measured bits from him in time, praying that she picked up on their true meaning. Putting it all out there laid bare is too much. She says she understands, but he isn't entirely sure. It doesn't stop him from taking himself in hand the second she leaves, petrified but so  _ so  _ desperate at once. Those beautiful red lips of hers, a perfect complement to his own bitter sneer. When later they talk once more, the only thing prying his fearful lips open is his senses being overrun with Aggregio. Spilling years of stifled affection all at once.

"You are unlike any mage I've ever met. With you, it might be different."

A smile and chuckle, eyes sparkling. She doesn't understand. He can't stop himself from staring. Roses are meant to be admired, after all.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Her words bubble up some boyish need in him, dulled by the alcohol but still strong enough to pin him to his chair as she lets him open up. She has to know first. The things he talks about are not pleasant, but he couches them in terms that don't make the bile in his throat rise as strongly. 

"I didn't think I needed anyone, or wanted anyone. Until now."

Perhaps it's just the wine. 

He did want her, would have given it to her at some point had she not taken it. But as soon as those words left her bright red lips, his booze addled brain heard something click and he knew it was over. Too numb to check in with himself, but how could he blame her for that? This fault was his own. He was strong. He could have stopped it. He was made for serving, as his soul longed so badly to give it to her. His mind was not so willing.

"Perhaps another evening."

"Why not now?" 

Why not? He can't remember the answer, not with the buzz of wine cutting him off from his brain. All Fenris is at this point is instinct, and that doesn't care for logic, try and weakly stop it as it may. Instinct wants her, and  _ badly. _ He knew it was risky, but that damned rose. She was too powerful, all done in scarlet red to compliment her soft petals, the same ones that concealed the thorns that pricked at his side.

"I don't know. I need more-"

"If it helps, I brought wine too. Let's just… talk."

The vines circle tighter, holding him in. Talking turned to confessions, turned to her moving closer, touching… Death by a million small cuts, and he welcomed their pain. It was all he knew at that point. No matter all his stubbornness and proclamations, he was still just a slave in the end after all. A different, more beautiful face this master wore, but he was powerless to say no with those intense blue eyes penetrating down to his innermost worries. Bound once more to the obedience beaten into him over the years, and as soon as she pushed the issue…. he relented. Just like the fog warriors. Hawke reached out to touch him and he didn't stop her. She leaned down to kiss him, and he didn't stop her. His heart didn't want to, even if he knew he wasn't ready.

It felt good. Sure. His body responded. But something inside him shattered the second he let her sit in his lap, all over what he wanted to say and instead overwhelmed his senses with that desperation he had barely been staving off. Smothering his safety in handfuls of soft flesh, bite marks, and moans. Fenris lost his grip on why he even wanted this halfway through, but by then knew he couldn't disappoint her like that. Hawke was too good for him. He couldn't even fuck without having a breakdown.

She left him in a drunken daze after he shut down, hazy memories stirring him from sleep the next morning as roughly as the pounding headache. They only grew in intensity throughout the day. Flashes of color, mixed with memories he couldn't place. It hurt so badly, but this was his own fault. Delicate tendrils at first, her embrace felt like a comfort before her grip on him hardened, suffocating everything he needed to grow and heal.

The jabs, the taunts. He should be so lucky. Hawke was one of the most desired women in town, and she did want him… Just not in the way he could handle. It was too much, too fast. She didn't listen, didn't care, was having a bad day. 

Who knows really. 

But he can smell the jealousy broiling off half of the party as soon as they catch on, and  _ Maker's breath _ does it ever worm its way under his skin like a slow-moving poison, making him squirm with discomfort every time someone got mad at him for responding with anything less than absolute and utter joy at the prospect of Hawke touching him. Perhaps those vines around his house were toxic in the end. It wasn't like he could live without them there anyway. Fenris' skin now crawls every time he goes back to that cursed place. It's not safe anymore. He feels her hands on him, hears her soothing tone every time the silence is staggering through the empty, dull halls, devoid of love.

He hated her for what she did.

He hated himself for letting it happen. 

_ "I see the way you look at me… why did it take so long?" _

He couldn't ask for more time after that.

She wanted an easy love, and he knew he was difficult. Prickly, bitter, scarred, ruined, hunted. Not suited for the carefree life she deserved. Seeing Isabela on her arm not a month later, he could hardly blame her. With every snide comment from her or Anders, he barricaded himself further and further, so far from reach that before he finally quit showing up to Hawke’s summons he did little but shamble lifeless from area to area. When first he joined her merry band, the taunts and banter were welcome and light-hearted, insightful, from a place of respect at the very least, save Anders'. But now it just reeked of jealousy. She had wasted her time and affections on someone who in their eyes threw it back in her face, so how could he begin to explain? He didn't even know why he reacted as badly as he did. Couldn't put to words the crawling sting in his core as she used his body to chase her high while he only fell deeper instead.

It was all he deserved, knowing he was worth nothing but mindless killing. The violent streak that was always there under the surface worsened, though only letting loose its fury on eviscerating slavers and mages at first. At the very least, her selfish, cruel heart allowed him this tiny respite. Tearing, hacking, ripping, dismembering disgusting degenerates as if them losing body parts would somehow make him whole again as well. Painting the walls of his mansion in a bleeding, aching red of loss as those whipping growths only encroached further on his already abysmally small safe place.

But no. 

No matter how many hearts were gripped in his bitter fist, it could not fill the void of need her cruelty left. Hawke didn't seem to notice. The vines encroached even further, choking him and taking his voice as they went. It was better this way. The basement store emptied into his veins, every bottle drowning out the self-loathing until it’s cries couldn’t interrupt his sleep. More so on days that he caught Hawke talking about him, especially on days where that hidden speech turned to mockery. His inadequacy, the confusion in his eyes, how pathetic and uninterested he seemed, though she didn't think to ask why. It seemed everyone in the party insisted upon his humiliation for a lapse in judgement. Thorns in his side, circling tighter, pushing him to the safe isolation he well knew once again. 

Fenris welcomed the pain that he knew easier than the one he didn't. Without her voice echoing through the barren halls of his stolen home, the silence was deafening. Nothing to keep him company but the booze and vines creeping in through the ceiling, their tendrils uncut and unchallenged as they slowly tore down the neglected building he had no right to inhabit. More and more, more booze, more self-loathing, more holes in the walls. It wasn't enough. Bloody knuckles covered in gauntlets, swollen to the point it was hard to grip his sword as allies commented on his slipping with various states of unease. If Hawke recognized she was the cause of his decline, she did little to stop it. She had her easy lay. He left as easily as he came.

The absence of any response from her was worse than anything. It was all he could do to blame himself and slowly disappear, the lyrium ghost gone for good. He had boxed himself in too far for redemption, the thorns piercing his fragile heart finally caving it in as his last thoughts lingered in the dead dusty air around him. In the end, that was his downfall; fighting so strongly to escape slavery, only to shackle himself to a bleaker future. It only took one misstep to seal his grave in the end, but truly it was just the tipping point of an already overburdened soul. Fenris had never intended to die, no. In fact, his steadfast resolve is what initially drew her in. But Fenris also couldn't have anticipated how deep her hurt would cut him.

_ I should have stayed with my master... _

Hawke had inquired as to his whereabouts a few times in the years since, but after being met with confused shrugs and no other word they had little control or reason to stop his companionship from fading from memory. The boon and bane of solitary living; he never allowed himself to be trapped in any one place, but also stopped himself from having others beholden to his well-being instead. A sad sense of longing overcame Hawke as her eyes lingered over a suspicious skeleton in the corner of a dilapidated estate in Hightown, surrounded by a disturbingly large hoard of empty bottles and half covered in thorny branches. Something poetic about the scene, even amongst the piles of noteless bodies left in her wake. She didn't know why it stuck with her, only stirring from the unsettling feeling at Varric's words. 

"Hey, isn't this where that one guy you banged with the tattoos used to sleep?"


End file.
